I come from West Papua, I live in the UK, in Oxford now. I just want to say what is happening with women in West Papua. Before we had leaders of women groups, or something. But then missionaries they went there and said, “Oh you have to be part of men, and you can not talk, and you can not stand up and talk a lot. And you have to stay at home, only that. But you can not stand up and become leader and talking, you can not.
I feel the policies of the G8 has really affected the Nigerian people because these days you know we hear of Nigerian immigrants everywhere as illegal immigrants. And it's mostly the policies of the Western countries that has actually pushed people out of Nigeria. Because the high level of unemployment, the poverty and the educational policies too. It has really affected the young people in Nigeria because their parents can not actually pay for their school fees, because part of the IMF conditionalities is that they should 'hands off' tertiary education in Nigeria. And that has really affected the Nigerian people, because they can hardly feed themselves thoughtless of sending their children to university.
Many of the politicians there mainly represent the interest of big business. For instance we found that as AIDS activists in South Africa, that the George Bush regime tends to, will provide AIDS funding to developing countries only if they use brand name drugs produced by multinationals like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Women suffer a lot because of these policies. Women have been playing a vital role in the production of food grain in India. But because of mechanised farming and cash crop production they are thrown out of this system. The most vulnerable situation which has been created is of migration. And because of migration women suffer. They get sexually harassed, exploited...The living conditions in urban areas are very poor, especially for women. Their living pattern changes. The life is more insecure as compared to their native places. And all this is definitely going to affect our society at a larger level.